Some on Right See Red Flags In GOP Report

The national Republican Party's new 97-page blueprint for rebuilding the GOP makes no fewer than 30 mentions of the need to become more welcoming and inclusive, mainly on immigration and social issues.

WSJ's Neil King discusses the damning findings of the GOP's internal report into the state of the party, and analyzes what shifts, if any, Republicans are willing to make on policy and presentation.

That has some social conservatives worried that the party may become less welcoming to them.

On social issues, the party will never win over young voters if it is seen as "totally intolerant of alternative points of view," a Republican National Committee panel said this past week in its report on rejuvenating the party. The report didn't mention gay marriage specifically, but it appeared to be talking about the issue when it said that "certain social issues" are "turning off young voters from the party," and that many young voters see these matters as "the civil rights issue of our time."

Ralph Reed,
founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, is among a group of conservatives now holding up a large "Caution" sign, particularly on the subject of changing the party's stance on marriage.

ENLARGE

Ralph Reed, founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, speaks during an interview in Washington, D.C., in December.
Bloomberg News

As someone who consulted on the blueprint, Mr. Reed said he applauds its "cold-eyed, unreserved, unflinching look at the mistakes Republicans made" in losing last year's presidential election and several Senate races that the party had expected to win.

But a push to change the party's stance on social issues, particularly by playing down its opposition to gay marriage, "is not a freebie for the Republican Party," Mr. Reed said. A move in that direction, he said, "will bleed away support from evangelicals," traditionally one of the party's pillars.

Tony Perkins,
president of the Family Research Council, a Christian conservative activist group, sent his warning to the party in an email to thousands of supporters.

Previously

"If the RNC abandons marriage, evangelicals will either sit the elections out completely—or move to create a third party," he wrote. "Either option puts Republicans on the path to a permanent minority."

The only other policy sphere that the report singled out was immigration, calling for the party to "embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform," a term that generally includes granting legal status and possibly citizenship to people who entered the country illegally. That idea has divided the evangelical community and the party as a whole, with some supporting it and others opposing what they say amounts to a reward for lawbreaking.

The national party's self-examination focused less on changing its policy stances than on a need to adjust its tone and find new ways to deliver its message to voters. It was particularly concerned with strategies for expanding the conservative brand into minority communities and other places where it hasn't been popular.

When party officials this past week did talk about adjusting policy, they had to navigate potent and conflicting opinions among Republicans. In the course of introducing the self-critique and revival plan, Reince Priebus, the national GOP chairman, noted that Republican Sen.
Rob Portman
of Ohio had recently shifted positions to support gay marriage, a move Mr. Priebus said "made some pretty big inroads" in the direction of the inclusiveness the party seeks.

But he quickly clarified that the party wasn't moving away from its own view that "marriage is between one man and one woman."

Other social conservatives suggested social conservatives needn't worry that the party will abandon them.

"My first response on reading the report was, 'It's about time,' " said Richard Land, longtime president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission within the Southern Baptist Convention. He said the greater risk to the party would be a refusal to embrace a comprehensive immigration overhaul and to continue to lose support among Hispanics.

"I see no sign that anyone is trying to read social conservatives and tea partiers out of the party," he said.

Frank Cannon, who directs the conservative American Principles Project, said the authors of the RNC report erred in de-emphasizing social issues when singling out the electoral successes of the country's 30 Republican governors. Many of those governors are cutting taxes and taking on labor unions.

"They put all the focus on the fiscal and economic accomplishments [of the governors] but forget that those governors have also won their states on the strength of social issues," he said.

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